I'm excited, not only because I'm looking forward to see old DC again, but also because it's the first long-distance road trip that I'll make by car.
We'll leave in an hour or so, and pick up 3 of Sasha's classmates who will join us. We're going to stay at Rosa's place tonight, and tomorrow morning Sasha and Vladi will vote in the Bulgarian elections in the embassy in D.C.
It's a 4 or 5 hour drive, and the weather looks good although we may get some heavy winds in Virginia.
Firefox is the web browser that I use. I'm not a big fan of running beta versions of my browser because it is so important in my daily use -- I can't afford to loose time with a potential broken browser -- so this is the first time I see the new feature that were added.
Over-all, the browser has not changed all that much but I like the new features, such as the improved search support and better RSS support. The inline spell checking will help me improve the quality of the articles for my website.
A while back Sasha and I watched V for Vendetta, an action-thriller set in London in the near future.
We now have Time Warner as cable provider, and although the selection of on demand movies is slightly smaller, they have pretty good and up-to-date selection of movies.
V was a delightful movie -- a bit predictable but with great visual effects, which I like.
I didn't know them, but the movie is based on a comic series.
When I was in Middenmeer Mieke and I went to the bus stop to pick up Jaap.
Jaap and Peter went to the Frankfurter Buchmesse for 3 days. Initially my plan was to arrive in the Netherlands on Wednesday stay until Sunday which would have meant that Jaap and I would see each other only on the last day, but I was able to arrive in Holland a few days earlier and Jaap and Peter returned on Friday from Germany, so thankfully we could spend a lot of time together.
We wanted to pick Jaap up from the trainstation in Alkmaar, but he didn't have a cell phone so we didn't know when exactly he would arrive. We guessed the arrival time of his bus in Middenmeer, there were basically 3 busses he could take.
When we were waiting for the first bus I took some pictures of Middenmeer. I enjoyed this Friday, spending time at home and shopping with Mieke.
Waiting in the car. It was raining a bit.
A milk car in a Dutch polder.
Middenmeer.
The first bus arrived but Jaap wasn't on it.
Later we went to wait for the 2nd bus, which was in the center of town, and there he was.
This Saturday Sasha and I spent a day exploring the area we live in.
We started by opening new bank accounts. The accounts we have are with banks in the Washington DC area and they don't have branches here. Most of the transactions we do via internet, but it is useful to have a local bank, especially for cashing checks.
As expected, opening the accounts took a while but after an hour or so we completed all the paperwork.
The lady in the bank recommended us a nice diner to go for brunch, in downtown Durham. It was busy (we were there around noon) but we got a table quickly. It's a place for classic American breakfast, and with unlimited refills for coffee which was great.
After lunch we walked through the main street of Durham. It's not very large but there are nice shops and restaurants. We bought a bread at a local bakery.
After a quick stop at home we drove to Raleigh. Instead of taking the exit to my work, as I usually do, we continued to downtown Raleigh and parked near the state Capitol building.
We went for a long walk in that area. It was quiet on Saturday afternoon -- it's mainly a business district. Later we came in the more alive areas, although many shops were closed because of the NC State Fair.
Explanatory sign at the State Capitol.
State Capitol.
Downtown Raleigh. It almost looks like a big city!
A map of downtown Raleigh.
From downtown we walked to this area, with restaurants and little shops. It was really quiet because of the NC State Fair.
For a long time I couldn't upgrade Guus Bosman.nl to a new version of the operation system, OpenBSD. There is a step in the upgrade process that requires physical access to the console, which is located in Middenmeer. My parents are hosting the website on the attic (thanks!)
It had been about two years since the last upgrade, to 3.5, but since OpenBSD releases a new version every six months I was almost 4 releases behind. Almost, because 4.0 will be released November 1st.
However, if I keep updating (from source) everytime a new release comes out I should be able to upgrade the server remotely.
Michel sent me this nice movie, appropriate for today. Enable your sound and enjoy!
The morning Jaap and I went to the American consulate in Amsterdam, 
A while back Sasha and I watched V for Vendetta, an action-thriller set in London in the near future.
When I was in Middenmeer Mieke and I went to the bus stop to pick up Jaap.
I am really concerned about the last cutting of the Starfish.
This Saturday Sasha and I spent a day exploring the area we live in.
For a long time I couldn't upgrade Guus Bosman.nl to a new version of the operation system, OpenBSD. There is a step in the upgrade process that requires physical access to the console, which is located in Middenmeer. My parents are hosting the website on the attic (thanks!)
